You would still owe the same amount either way, but BOOM now you have NINE financed properties and can still get #10 Fannie/Freddie and avoid the 7%.There are also games you can play with putting the property and debt in your spouse's name alone (we're a community property state in CA so it makes little difference so long as you're married), with shoving the smallest debt amount into commercial, and a few others, but rolling your lowest mortgage balance into the property that you have the most equity in is the most commonly successful technique.TLDR: You can shove as much debt into as few properties as possible to avoid the 10 financed properties cap.

You need to find out if you are even on the same playing field.

You can play the card of needing to have verifiable documents before listing the property.

I also have a valuable property that will go commercial out of that deal but its a 10 yr play. 

@Jacob Sampson Thank you for sharing, I'm playing with your system on the stack of Multi's in front of me.

Just play with the numbers to find an interest rate, length of loan, and purchase price that would work for you and the seller.

Or - invest elsewhere.I ended up investing about an hour outside of the city in a smaller town that has a stable population and am doing a cash flow play instead of property appreciation play.

DTI is going to play into it using conventional financing, which is why you hit the wall.

(as I sit at my laptop while I watch my kids play in the family room)

Aka kinda play it safe in a way where there won't be a huge lose if there is but won't be massive profits either.